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Maria Keil

Roles
Interdisciplinary Laboratory
Priority AreaProjects:
Maria Keil is a scientific investigator in the project »Health and Gestaltung«.

Following her studies in Product Design in Heiligendamm/Wismar and Weimar, she began a professional career as a freelance designer. From 2009 to 2014 she pursued and received a Bachelor’s degree in Cultural Theory and History, Philosophy, and Archeology, and a subsequent Master’s degree in Cultural Theory and History at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. For her M.A. thesis titled »Das Bett in der Klinik: Eine Fallgeschichte« (The Bed in the Clinic: A Case Study) on the history of the hospital bed (from 1700 to 1900) she received the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Krankenhausgeschichte (German Society for Hospital History) 2nd funding grant.

Continuing her interest in the hospital bed for her doctoral disertation, she is currently investigating the concepts of health, illness, and mobility according to different historical figures, on the basis of modern-day problems. In this context, she regards the bed as a cultural artifact and also as a social actor; by means of an analysis of the cultural and technical practices that materialized in the bed, Maria Keil pursues the question of where and how the bed induced the standardization of medical and nursing procedures.

Her research interests are material culture, history of the hospital bed in Europe beginning in the 18th century, and concepts of mobility and health.